Everything’s coming up fail for the Cipriani family. Last week, they announced the Rainbow Grill was to be no more, and today, word comes out that they’ve lost their lease on the Rainbow Room. Evidently, they think the rent is too darned expensive (despite it being reduced last year), so they quit paying it in October:

The Cipriani family has lost its lease on the Rainbow Room restaurant in New York’s Rockefeller Center after failing to pay rent, the New York Times reported.

Landlord Tishman Speyer Properties ended the lease because the restaurateurs failed to pay its rent since September, the newspaper reported, citing Robert Lawson, a spokesman for Tishman.

The family intends to continue in business and will fight the claim in court, the Times said, citing David Rozenholc, an attorney for the Ciprianis. Late last year, arbitrators ruled that Tishman imposed an excessive rent when the lease was renegotiated in early 2008, cutting it to $6 million a year from $8.7 million, the newspaper said, citing people it didn’t identify.

Is this what happens when too much of your operating income goes to paying fines to the NYState liquor authority? I’ve not actually been to the Rainbow Room, but I’ve been to the Cipriani-owned Harry’s Bar in Venice, and with what it cost to have a few Bellinis there it seems like you could pay rent for their entire chain for a month or two. Maybe that was just an exchange-rate thing though.